Benghazi ARB Follow-Up: Quick Comment, Part 1

A panel of experts will think deeply about security

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So, yesterday the State Department sent out a press release about the progress it has made implementing the recommendations of the Benghazi ARB. That effort will have major ramifications. To quote from the release, it "will require fundamentally reforming the organization in critical ways. While risk can never be completely eliminated from our diplomatic duties, we must always work to minimize it."

You can read the whole press release here (Benghazi Accountability Review Board Implementation), but two particular items in it strike me as either curious or wrong-headed.

First, the curious one.

Recommendation 4. The Department should establish a panel of outside independent experts (military, security, humanitarian) with experience in high risk, high threat areas to identify best practices (from other agencies and other countries), and evaluate U.S. security platforms in high risk, high threat posts.

And where does that recommendation stand now?

The Department established a six-person panel to identify best practices used by other agencies and countries; this panel’s work is expected to be complete by late summer.

The State Department, whatever its faults, is the only organization in the world that operates so many diplomatic missions in so many volatile locations. And, whatever we may think of our budgets, it is vastly better resourced and better staffed than its counterpart organizations in other countries and international agencies. I've served in the U.S. military, worked in the private consulting sector and as a field security adviser for a UN humanitarian agency, and have worked for the Department for so long that I can watch myself age as I flip through my old passport pictures, and I honestly think the Department pretty much defines the best security practices in high-risk / high-threat areas. What's more, since I'm in frequent contact with other U.S. agencies and foreign security establishments, I know that opinion is shared by others.

Of course, I'm always eager to learn from outside independent experts, but who are these wise men? Whatever they're doing has been kept out of the news media, but today I learned the names of two of the panel members. It was a let-down.

One of them I know only by reputation (which is good), but his professional background is only marginally relevant, his career was spent entirely on the domestic side, and he retired from active duty about twenty years ago. The other I know personally, going back to one of his first jobs in the Department. He has a relevant background, and he rose to a high position in another U.S. government agency, but stepped down from that position after a rather large mismanagement fiasco.

Even giving these gentlemen every benefit of the doubt, placing them on this panel gives Congressional critics cause to doubt both its independence and its expertise.

Maybe the rest of the panel will be so super impressive that I'll be amazed and delighted when they complete their work and issue a report. Hey, hope springs eternal.

The other item that I want to quickly comment on is the recommendation to develop minimum security standards for temporary mission facilities. More on that tomorrow.